Singularity source code

A while back I wrote a post about Microsofts expermental OS built using an extension of C# . Now they have suprised us with the release of a RDK which includes source code, build tools, test suites, design notes, and other background materials. Cool ;-)

Seam Carving

Isn't it annoying when you re-size a web page with an image in it and it doesn't re-sizes with the page. Or when you need an image to just shrink and look good without contorting or looking squeezed and you have to whip out the old Photoshop to fix it. Well your wishes have been granted. You can thank Shai Avidan and Ariel Shamir for creating a new image resizing algorithm that fixes all that and a bag chips, its called Seam Carving. The algorithm is amazing. Its almost spooky just looking at it work. You can squeeze an image down to half the width and it still looks good and preserves all the detail. You can even stretch a landscape image and give it a panoramic look.

You just won't believe it until you see it in action.
Check it....


I can see every browser, photo-editing and even video editing software using this technology. By the looks of it I think it might be open source.

Here are some libraries and applications so that you can start using it with your projects.

Seam Libraries & applications

C Library

.NET Library

C++ Library

Resizor

SharpDevelop IDE

About 2 years ago I went on a search for a zip library because the .NET Framework at the time did not have one. I found this really nice zip library that came from the SharpDevelop IDE project. At the time the SharpDevelop project was pretty basic and they were at version 1.1. Well things have really changed since then. They have added some really cool features such as multiple framework support, refactoring, Subversion integration and Mono support.

Here's a list of some of the features...

• Open source, LGPL licensed


• Write C#, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, XML, HTML code


• Forms designer for C#, VB.NET and Boo


• Code completion for C#, VB.NET and Boo (including Ctrl+Space support)


• Integrated NUnit support plus code coverage (NCover)


• Multi-framework support (.NET 1.1 and 2.0, Mono, Compact Framework)


• XML Editing (source and tree view) with XPath search


• Subversion integration


• Code template support


• Easily extensible with external tools


• Re-host SharpDevelop with SDA


• Easily extensible with Plug-Ins

If your looking for a Free alternative to Visual Studio or even a Windows Mono IDE this is a very good alternative.

Interview with Linus Torvalds

I just read this interview with Linus Torvalds over at www.oneopensource.it .
One of the questions that really stood out for me was this one.

A curiosity: which is your favourite distribution, and which on e do you consider more secure?

I don’t really tend to care much, I’ve changed distributions over the years, and to me the most important thing tends to be that they are easy to install and upgrade, and allow me to do the only part I really care about - the kernel.

So the only major distribution I’ve never used has actually been Debian, exactly because that has traditionally been harder to install. Which sounds kind of strange, since Debian is also considered to be the “hard-core technical” distribution, but that’s literally exactly what I personally do not want in a distro. I’ll take the nice ones with simple installers etc, because to me, that’s the whole and only point of using a distribution in the first place.

So I’ve used SuSE, Red Hat, Ubuntu, YDL (I ran my main setup on PowerPC-based machines for a while, and YDL - Yellow Dog Linux - ended up the easiest choice). Right now, most of my machines seem to have Fedora 7 on then, but that’s only a statement of fact, not meant to be that I think it’s necessarily “better” than the other distros.

I thought this to be a very funny comment, coming from a major kernel developer. Allot of Linux zealots bash windows users because of there dependence on so called dumb down user interfaces and lack of knowledge of the command line. When at the end of the day one of the main creators of Linux likes to use the distro that is the easiest to install with the dumb down GUI.

Now I know this question is talking about system installations. But I want to take it a step further to application installs. One of the major missing features that I think is holding back Linux is a standard install and uninstall service across all distros. This would make the lift to switching to Linux, for first time users, allot easier.

Full interview here...

MonoDevelop 0.14 has been released

Here are some of the highlights...

• Subversion add-in.
• Refactoring operations.
• New smart indenting for C#
• Project exporting and conversion (includes Visual Studio 2005).
• New features in Gtk# designer.
• Desktop Integration Features (editor for launchers, .desktop files).

This IDE is one of the best IDE's for Mono. If your a VS lover you'll find your self at home using this IDE for linux.

Check it out here... MonoDevelop

Plus checkout the Mono Project here if you haven't already... Mono Project